got for reply: "I am here to preach the
Gospel, and I can do nothing in the matter."

Chaplains paid by the State, and forming part of the penal
establishment, can never do much good to the prisoners, except in so
far as they operate as a check upon the cruelty or neglect of the
governor and other officers. Missionaries having no connection with
Government, might do some good amongst them. At the time I commenced to
attend the prison chapel, I learned that a score or so of convicts took
the sacrament. Some of them were truly pious, as far as one could judge
in such matters, others were unfit or unworthy partakers, the whole of
them were called by the other prisoners "Parson's men," or "Sacrament
blokes," and it used to pain me to hear them scoffed and mocked at. It
was a great victory if they could be got to swear on the evening of the
communion day: I never could make up my mind to become a "Parson's
man," for reasons perhaps not very satisfactory, even to myself. In the
first place I belonged to another branch of the church; then I had only
one leg and could not kneel at the altar, and would have felt while
standing something like a beggar in dirty rags in a fine pew among
silks and satins; then again I would have lost my influence over many
of my fellow-prisoners. I may have been wrong in all this, but as I
once said to my fellow-prisoners when appealed to on the subject of
religion, "There are only three cardinal points in my religious belief,
and these are simple and easily remembered--believe in Christ, love
God, and love my neighbour; what I do inconsistent with the last I know
to be wrong. It is inconsistent, I think, with the latter, for
Protestants to revile and speak evil of Roman Catholics, and _vice
versa_, therefore I disapprove of discussions and arguments on
religious belief among prisoners, as they usually lead to feelings
incompatible with true neighbourly love." Such was my reply to a
question addressed to me by a convict during a hot debate between the
Protestants and Roman Catholics, and it allayed the storm instantly. As
a rule I avoided and discountenanced all discussion on theological
subjects.

After I had been four weeks in the prison I began to get a little
downhearted at finding myself so far removed from sympathy. In the
hospital I had an occasional chat with a Scripture-reader, but here
there was no one with whom I could have any intellectual conversation,
and no visitors were allowed. I